NEWS

“In an annual ritual, the Rent Guidelines Board took only a half-hour last night to recommend preliminary increases that would range between 3.25 and 6.25 percent for one-year lease renewals and 5 to 9.5 percent for two years.” The final numbers will be determined in June. [NY Post]

“A 14-year-old boy allegedly bit a teacher at a Lower East Side school on Tuesday, police said.” [DNA Info]

Philip Nobel asks, “What names wouldn’t be on the alumni rolls if Cooper had not been free? What future talents will be thwarted by a lack of funds? We’re about to find out, and we’ll never know.” [Architect]Read more…

Rents at Jupiter 21 will range from $3,000 to $10,000 a month. A resident of the building it replaced, which held Mars Bar, says that during the 1980s she could look out her window and see the glow of “60 crack pipes.” [Wall Street Journal]

In an opinion piece that’s getting a good deal of pick-up, Felix Salmon slams Cooper Union for pursuing an overly ambitious growth strategy in the face of debt. [Reuters]

The rooftop of a five story building on East Seventh near Avenue C is caught on film Sunday afternoon, serving a cautionary tale for summer barbecues. [City Room]Read more…

An ad for Chrysler’s John Varvatos 300C Limited Edition features Iggy Pop on the Bowery. [Neighborhoodr]

Police are looking for two men wanted for an alleged sexual abuse and robbery on the Lower East Side. [NY1]

A new exhibit, “The Old Becomes The New: New York Contemporary Native American Art Movement And The New York School” continues at Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba (219 East Second Street) through June 2. [Hyperallergic]Read more…

The Jefferson building has released the floor plans and prices for its condos…hope you’re sitting down when you read the numbers. [Curbed NY]

“A nude model who used a topless tour to convince cops not to shut down a racy photo exhibit at a Lower East Side gallery has been forced to cover up after the landlord threatened to terminate the gallery’s lease.” [NY Post]Read more…

More on the fire at Momo+Momo: “Most of the LPs are fine, some of them were damaged by the water,” says manager Andy Song. “Luckily, nobody was hurt,” Song said. “We hope to be back up and running in a month.” [DNA Info]

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation complains that “as part of an ongoing renovation of the 85 year old tower, NYU is ripping out the modern casement windows and replacing them with the blank, single pane ones. The new windows look like they were made for a spacecraft, or at best, a suburban office park, rather than a pre-war Gothic tower.” [Off the Grid]

A resident of 377 East 10th Street has been charged with criminal possession of a weapon after police confiscated two machine guns at the former squat house earlier this month, court documents show. In addition to the felony counts, Manuel Salazar, 21, is charged with possession of marijuana and intent to sell a controlled substance.

As The Local previously reported, police entered the apartment with a search warrant at 4:45 a.m on April 1. There, they found Mr. Salazar and an unnamed individual inside his bedroom, along with the two assault weapons, five rounds of ammunition, over five pounds of marijuana, two “large” bags of hallucinogenic mushrooms, 44 tablets of Xanax, a collapsable baton, and over $13,000 in cash, according to the criminal complaint.

The two guns, which a police source had said were Tec-9s, were actually one AP9 semi-automatic and one MP9 semi-automatic — each outfitted with a high-capacity magazine, according to the complaint.

Both of the guns were loaded, “with intent to use it unlawfully against another,” the complaint read; one of the guns was defaced to conceal its identity.

It’s still unclear how Mr. Salazar obtained the guns. He’ll appear in court on April 26.

That’s exactly what police say happened on March 5 around 3:05 a.m., when a customer got into it with a server at the Popeyes Louisiana Chicken at 108 Delancey Street. When the man’s order didn’t go as planned, he went behind the counter and started hurling grub around, the police said. Then he stormed out, breaking the door with his foot and walking right through it, as shown in the above surveillance camera footage.

The man is said to be 5’8”, with long hair in a ponytail, and glasses. At the time of the incident, he was wearing a black jacket and a button-down shirt over a red T-shirt, with jeans and sneakers.

A Popeyes employee declined to say what exactly prompted the alleged tenders tantrum.

“Chad Marlow, the founder of the Tompkins Square Park & Playground Parents’ Association, wants to bring a “slow zone” to the East Village as part of the Department of Transportation’s Slow Zone program, which lowers the speed limit within designated zones from 30 to 20 miles per hour.” [DNA Info]

An East Village “boutique condo” is on the market for $1.125 million. [Curbed]

“For one night, punk rock fans and foodies will have a chance to relive the grungy past when Marky Ramone teams up with Daniel Boulud for an evening of music and feasting.” [Gothamist]Read more…

The woman who died in an early-morning apartment fire has been identified as Mary Lincoln Bonnell, an 84-year-old artist known for her giant abstract bronze sculptures. [NY Post]

The East Village Parks Conservancy wants to give Tompkins a multi-million-dollar overhaul. “The Conservancy hopes not only to replace the park’s rundown and decrepit bits, but also to give it the ‘design integrity’ that it had before renovations in the 1990s ‘stripped the park of its elegant historic character.'” [NY Press]

“Police showed up yesterday afternoon at the ROX Gallery and met 24-year-old beauty Natalie White — who went bare-breasted as she showed them the exhibit, which is plastered with explicit photo of her. She even invited them to last night’s opening.” [NY Post]

Some public school students gathered with parents and activists in the auditorium at P.S. 364, the Earth School in the East Village on April 14 to protest standardized tests. [Village Voice]

Susan Stetzer, district manager of Community Board 3, spoke out against proposed budget cuts to New York City libraries. [DNA Info]Read more…

The police are seeking a man who is said to have inappropriately touched a young child.

The suspect, a sketch of whom is shown here, approached a nine-year-old girl and touched her on the buttocks around 4:45 p.m. on Sunday, the police said. He’s thought to be in his 30s or 40s, between 5’8” and 5’10”, and approximately 240 pounds, with black and grey hair.

The police didn’t specify where in the East Village the alleged act of sexual abuse occurred. We’ll update this post with any further details.

As you can see above, the former Life Cafe space is getting a new restaurant, Maiden Lane. Michael Natale, who posted interior shots to The Local’s Flickr pool, says it’ll open Wednesday. [GammaBlog]

More details have emerged about the dormitory Gregg Singer has proposed for the old P.S. 64 building: “The dormitory, called University House, will have amenities ranging from a health center to private study rooms and a fitness center. Mr. Singer expects rents to be about $1,550 per month per bed. It is expected to open in the fall of 2014. Cooper Union has signed a 15-year agreement for its students to get priority for roughly 200 beds.” [Wall Street Journal]

The owner of Boukiés is suing the State Liquor Authority over an “illegal” liquor license agreement that he felt he was forced into with CB3. [DNAinfo]Read more…

Here’s more about the man who fell on the train tracks at the Second Avenue subway stop Friday: “The worried mom says her son suffers from seizures, as well as emotional and drug problems. She said tests found no alcohol in his system and that she believes he fell because of a seizure.” [NY Post]

David Cross on filming in his old neighborhood: “Especially in the East Village, there’s this old, annoying kind of typically clichéd, iconoclastic punker and all that kind of s- -t — the Goths and gay guys — and those guys see the production, and they’re yelling, ‘The park is for the people!’ It was a nightmare.” [NY Post]

“On Saturday, Bleecker Bob’s shuttered its doors for good after forty-six years on the corner of West 3rd Street and MacDougal – just a week before Record Store Day celebrations on the 20th.” [Runnin’ Scared]Read more…

A man was shot on East Third Street this afternoon in one of two incidents that brought ambulances to the block between Avenues B and C.

The 52-year-old man was shot around 1:15 p.m. by another man who fled the scene; he was taken to Bellevue Hospital and was not likely to die, said the police. No arrests have been made.

Gabriel Escalante, 27, heard gunfire while he was in the kitchen at Rossy’s Bakery, across the street from the Bracetti Plaza public housing development. “I guess they got him as he was leaving his building,” he said. Mr. Escalante said the man, known as Mondo, was a regular customer of the bakery and a “nice guy.”Read more…

Police confiscated two Tec-9 machine guns from an apartment at 377 East 10th Street and arrested three residents of the building early in the morning on April 1, a police source told The Local.

The building on East 10th Street, between Avenues B and C, is a former squat house that residents were able to buy from the city for $1 in a deal negotiated in 2002 with help from the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. In 2003 it was described as “one of the quieter, more well established squats,” so it is unclear why the three residents possessed the guns, which are the same model as the ones used in the Columbine shootings.

Police entered the apartment with a search warrant and recovered the weapons at 4:45 a.m. “These guns were made for killing, there is no other legitimate purpose to have one,” said the police source.

A resident of the building tells a different story, however. Read more…

Jared Kushner is still at it: “329-335 East 9th Street and 325 East 10th Street, were sold in an off market deal to the Kushner Companies by Icon Realty Management, which bought the buildings in 2010, according to city records.” [Real Estate Weekly]

“Management of the decades-old West Third Street record store Bleecker Bob’s Golden Oldies said Monday night that a deal to keep a music counter inside the frozen yogurt shop that has leased the space is ‘almost definitely off’ as the vinyl gurus prepare to move out as soon as this weekend.” [DNAinfo]

An alternate take about the No 7-Eleven campaign: “It’s not gentrification that’s being protested. It’s gentrification — in a crystallized form — that’s being preserved!” [Quilas]Read more…

Eight new members have been appointed to Community Board 3. [The Lo-Down]

“Coming up this weekend at the Sunshine Cinema, there will be a screening of the “NIMBY Experience,” in which the Lower East Side’s Luis Guzman goes homeless on the streets of New York City to “shed light” on a cause he’s passionate about.” [The Lo-Down]

The owner of Bella Tile is upset that taxis visiting the Madina mosque continue to block his driveway. [The Villager]Read more…

A man attempted to rob the Duane Reade at Broadway and West Houston Street on Tuesday, the police said.

Around 11 p.m., the man entered the store and handed the cashier a note demanding the money in the register, a police spokesperson said. The would-be robber was unarmed but “simulated” carrying a weapon. The cashier was unconvinced, however, and refused to hand over the money. “They didn’t get anything,” the spokesperson said.

The alleged robber then fled on foot. The police are currently looking for suspects.

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Hello, Neighbors

The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »